The Cursed Chronicles: Year 6

Chapter 48

For a precious second, the tension of the morning split as if someone had opened the curtains, flooding light into a dark room. Unable to resist Sabrina's contagious drunken euphoria, Bella managed a smile, Parisa a slightly nervous giggle, and Albus let out a slightly delirious laugh. 

Sabrina took a deep breath, unable to stop smiling, and exhaled shakily, still trembling from her enormous victory over her own self-doubt and years of Alecia's abuse. A little erratically, she ran her fingers through her straight blonde hair, tousling her smooth style.

"I'm not going to lie, that felt good."

"I can imagine," Bella agreed. "I'm proud of you Sabrina, and I don't want to overshadow your victory, but we need to discuss Katrina." Sabrina nodded. 

"No, you're right." Apparently her confidence boost hadn't worn off, because her gaze shifted to Albus and her eyes narrowed. She folded her arms and leaned forward. 

"If you had something to do with this, I'll gut you like a fish myself," she declared assertively, and Albus didn't doubt her. He raised his hands in surrender, albeit half-heartedly. As the distraction of Sabrina's newfound confidence slipped away, his heartache sunk back in. 

He explained the details of the previous evening's events, the weight on his chest growing heavier with each passing minute. The girls listened in silence, until finally his story came to a close with the champion's meeting with McGonagall. When his story was finished their was an awkward silence as the elephant in the room parked right in the middle of them: Albus' antagonistic role in Katrina's life over the past month. Albus didn't realize he was speaking until a few sentences in. He didn't really have to think about what he said: he just....kind of let the truth spill out. 

"I have never hurt as much as I did that moment I realized how horribly and unforgivably stupid I had been. There's no good explanation for the fact that although Katrina has never been anything but the most loyal and compassionate friend I have ever had, I have failed her in the worst way imaginable. The closest guess I can make is that I'm not used to good things staying with me. Everything I touch seems to go terribly sour and I know I should have had more faith in her but the truth is when she kissed me-"

"She kissed you?!?!" Parisa exclaimed. 

"Parisa, this is so not the time," Bella snapped, but couldn't hide her smile at the sight of the blush creeping up Albus' face.

"She-when she kissed me...." He was now finding himself incredibly flustered and it didn't help that all three of the girls were giving him knowing smiles. It would almost be better if they still wanted to throttle him. "The point is that I've never loved someone as much as I love Katrina! I had already gone through the pain of losing her twice, and she's so perfect and wonderful that I guess part of me believed I didn't deserve even half of her, but I loved her so much that it hurt so badly when she said those things and I thought maybe she felt that way too." He felt a little dizzy and out of breath and the aching in his chest was sharp now. He couldn't make eye contact with any of the girls, and couldn't stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks. 

"I've been ridiculously stupid and the truth is that I don't deserve her, but I love her. And if Delphi has hurt her-" His fists clenched. "I-I don't know that she'll ever forgive me and I wouldn't blame her, but I have to get her back." He choked. "I just have to."

The silence was frightening, and Albus folded his arms to his chest, unsure what to do, still unable to make eye contact with any of the girls. He wasn't sure he could keep breathing if the silence lasted much longer. He kept waiting to hear the crunching of the damp grass as they walked away, and left him to sob pathetically, alone on the castle grounds, but all he could hear was silence. 

And then there was a hand on his shoulder, and an embrace. All three girls hugged him and they all sunk to the ground, and he had never felt more relieved in his life. The comfort that their forgiveness gave him seemed to fill his lungs with air, though it couldn't relieve the aching in his heart. 

Bella pulled away and looked him in the eyes, hers damp like his.

"It's okay," she said with a smile. "You're okay. We're going to get her back, it's going to be okay." Then she pulled him back in for another hug and they stayed that way for a while. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, so let me get this straight, Katrina was kidnapped by Thomas on the night of the Yule ball, which somehow no one noticed, was basically hexed with a shock collar-baby monitor and threatened with Albus' life to stay in line, was forced to hide this from all of her friends, but was allowed to confess to her therapist, who helped her figure out that Thomas is a T-Class wizard who couldn't even do his stupid hex properly and that it could be fooled be a simple language change, which is how she told Scorpius, Parisa, Sabrina, and Bella about her situation. Meanwhile, after her thwarted suicide attempt, which I feel like we should be more concerned about, but whatever, she was forced to say some honestly mediocre insults to Albus which got him all butthurt and even when Scorpius told him what was going on, he refused to believe him. Then Scorpius, Katrina, and her therapist, which, by the way, I'm still confused about, I didn't' even know this school had a therapist, broke the hex on the night of the third task, which is when Katrina confessed her feelings for Albus, big shocker there, and Albus realized too late that he's a giant idiot, and watched Katrina get kidnapped. Did I get all that?" 

Bella sighed. "Yes, Rose, while I personally would have chosen a more eloquent summary tactic, you did in fact "get all that". Is anyone confused?"

"Well I am," Rose said. "But you clearly don't seem perturbed by my concerns."

"I'm with Rose," Nicole agreed. "I feel like we should be a little bit more concerned A) That Katrina somehow went through all this under our noses and B) That she attempted suicide?"

"Neither of those are extremely relevant at the moment, are they?" Emiliya pointed out. "What matters now is our game plan. I assume that's why you're telling us this?" Albus nodded. 

"With the evening of the final challenge drawing closer, it's clear that the fourth task will be when Delphi strikes. We have no idea what she has planned, specifically what she has planned for her three hostages. I'm assuming they'll be used as some kind of bait, but we can't really be sure what she'll do. There's no way of knowing. All we can do is be prepared for anything. Since we'll be on the playing field, Emiliya, Sabrina, Nicole and I will be key players. However, Bella, Parisa, Rose, and Scorpius should all be on standby. The fourth task is at the Quidditch pitch. You four should get to the stands early and get seats close to the front so you can leap into action if needed. Other than that, all we can do is be ready for anything. Does everyone understand?"

Albus' gaze panned over all the faces, who gave him grim nods. 

"We can do this," he said, hoping with every ounce of his being, that his words were true.